Fewer Vs. Less MGMAT SC guide

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dv2020: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 112; Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:39 pm; Location: Delhi; Thanked: 2 times

by dv2020 » Sun May 29, 2011 8:37 am

In the MGMAT SC guide page 194

We have less than twenty dollars.---> is correct

Whereas on page 199 The sentence is corrected by replacing fewer for less

The composer is regarded more for the quality of her works: in two decades, she has written FEWER than twenty complete works, including just three symphonies.

The thumbrule is use fewer for countable nouns. The thumbrule is not violated but I am missing some concepts here. Can someone especially someone from MGMAT clear me on this.

Thanks...

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sun May 29, 2011 8:37 am

aspirant2011: Legendary Member; Posts: 1574; Joined: Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:52 amFollowed by: 13 members; Thanked: 88 times

by aspirant2011 » Sun May 29, 2011 9:07 am

dv2020 wrote:In the MGMAT SC guide page 194

We have less than twenty dollars.---> is correct

Whereas on page 199 The sentence is corrected by replacing fewer for less

The composer is regarded more for the quality of her works: in two decades, she has written FEWER than twenty complete works, including just three symphonies.

The thumbrule is use fewer for countable nouns. The thumbrule is not violated but I am missing some concepts here. Can someone especially someone from MGMAT clear me on this.

Thanks...

Less is used for noun countable items and fewer is used for countable items...........in this twenty complete works are countable therefore, the usage of fewer is correct..........

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dv2020: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 112; Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:39 pm; Location: Delhi; Thanked: 2 times

by dv2020 » Sun May 29, 2011 9:52 am

But if we write :

We have fewer than twenty dollars.

will it be wrong is't twenty dollars countable

In the guide it says that if we use fewer we should write

We have fewer than twenty dollar bills.

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sameerballani: Legendary Member; Posts: 544; Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 8:10 amFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 45 times

by sameerballani » Sun May 29, 2011 10:52 am

dv2020 wrote:
We have less than twenty dollars.---> is correct

When we have things such as 20 Dollars, 20 Litres. That is basically the unit, then they actually refer to the Underlying thing(whose unit we are mentioning)
Eg: I have two litres of milk.Here Its basically talkin about milk which is non-countable
Similarly when we say twenty dollar, we talk about MONEY which is non-countable and hence we use LESS

The composer is regarded more for the quality of her works: in two decades, she has written FEWER than twenty complete works, including just three symphonies.

Here we are talking about 20 complete works, which is countable. So use fewer.

Thanks...

I hope this helps

Thanks

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